Town Meeting Talk

The September Town Meeting ended Oct 1.

We extended the session to accommodate a special town meeting on
A school feasibility study as requested by the MSBA.This is part of an
on going effort to get the necessary funding for the new Memorial
School project.The School Committee has been pursuing this to get a
commitment from the state to go forward with our Memorial school
project so we may receive a 50% reimbursement.

Town Meeting supported one last effort to reconstruct the Grandview
Farm Complex. Request for Proposals (RFPs) will go out to bid soon in
hope that we may finally complete the renovation within our
budget.This has been on going since we received the property from
Ruping Builders Inc. as part of the famous or infamous three way land swap.

An effort by Patriot Partners to acquire the Landlocked parcel
wasdefused by the voting down of two warrant articles as well
as a Motion to continue talks on municipal owned properties by
Land-use. Patriot Partners has a deadline to meet by way of an
option on the property that will expire May 2010. The Selectmen,
as well as Town Meeting, Do not feel the need to be pressured by
this deadline.Right now, the property is not for sale because it
is not in the best interest of the community. Why would we sell a
valuable piece of land with only one bidder at the table? Currently,
we have approx 4 million square feet of retail and office space that
has been permitted to go forward. We must allow these projects to
be built out and occupied before we move forward with additional
projects, such as the Landlocked parcel. At some time in the future,
the selectmen will want to open up some Talks with Town Meeting,
as well as the taxpayers, to hammer out some Ideas on what to do or
not what to do with this 247 acre parcel/forest. As I said at Town
Meeting, this land has survived two recessions and can also survive
a possible third.

The other land issue we are discussing is the Boston-owned property
located at the Northeastern campus, near Blanchard and Muller roads.
The property is owned by the city of Boston and is 219 acres. All but
45 acres of this land are located in Burlington. This land has been in
a trust by Mary Cummings to be forever used as recreational land.
Town Meeting supported the trust of Mary Cummings via an open
space Article by Paul Raymond to be attached to the property as an
extra layer ofprotection. Preserving open space has been a key issue
in manycommunities, especially with developers having opposing views.

As always, feel free to call or email me about these or any issues in the town.